"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Friday, June 22, 2012

Corporate Ed Reformers After Katrina Illegally Fired 7,500 Educators

Almost 7 years later, a federal judge rules. From Campbell Robertson for the NYTimes:

NEW ORLEANS — As much as some may wish otherwise, there is no starting
from scratch when rebuilding a city, or a school system.

A judge confirmed that here on Wednesday, ruling that the Orleans Parish
School Board and the Louisiana Department of Education, in laying the
groundwork for a school reform movement that has become nationally
recognized, illegally fired 7,500 school employees.

The decision by Ethel S. Julien, a federal District Court judge, backed
by 45 pages of reasoning and historical narrative, reinforced a
long-held counternarrative of the beginnings of that movement.

The judge described the state education superintendent, just two weeks after Hurricane Katrina
struck in August 2005, asking for billions of dollars from the federal
government and saying that a significant portion would be used to pay
out-of-work employees, the vast majority of whom were from Orleans
Parish.

But in the following months, the state-run Recovery School District won
control of nearly all New Orleans schools from the local school board,
as well as most of the board’s operating budget. The requested federal
funds were directed to the recovery district.

In December 2005, the local school board, with few schools and little
money in its control, passed a resolution firing 7,500 school employees,
who at that time had been on “disaster leave without pay,” an
employment status that Judge Julien found in her decision to be
“fictional.” She concluded that the state was liable for rendering the
local board unable to fulfill its contractual obligations to its
workers.

Judge Julien found that state law required the board to show just cause,
in writing, before firing a tenured teacher, and that fired employees
are entitled to hearings. She also found that a special policy for force
reductions at a time of economic crisis required the creation of a
“recall list” — designed to refill the vacancies with those who had been
laid off — and that even in that situation, employees who were
dismissed were entitled to a hearing.

None of these were done, and vacancies that arose when schools began to open, most of them charter schools, were filled by outsiders.

The class action suit that led to Wednesday’s decision has made sluggish
progress through the court system, starting as a petition in October
2005 by several employees denied an opportunity to work at new charter
schools here. Only later did the suit reach its current form: a claim
for damages by seven former employees, including teachers,
administrators and a secretary. The case, or some aspect of it, has
reached the State Supreme Court six times, said Willie M. Zanders, a
lawyer for the plaintiffs.

“We were optimistic during those seven years,” Mr. Zanders said. “We
just thought we needed to stay the course. The judicial system was
working, and we’ve been very successful.”

The plaintiffs’ awards, ranging from $48,000 to $480,000, were
calculated as the difference between the money they earned after Katrina
and the money they would have earned, in pay and benefits, if they had
continued as employees of the school board. If the case survives a
likely appeal, the financial ramifications could be substantial,
considering there are 6,900 people in the class.

“We are studying the opinion and looking at appellate issues,” said
Michael H. Rubin, a lawyer representing the defendants.

Beyond the financial considerations, however, are issues about the
city’s school reform efforts, which have been hailed by many both
nationally and in New Orleans but have inspired a profound sense of
disenfranchisement in others.

“It certainly opens up the broader question of ‘At what cost are we
willing to change?’ ” said Andre Perry, the associate director for
educational initiatives at the New Orleans-based Loyola Institute for Quality and Equity in Education. “It should not be by any means necessary.”

2 comments:

Huge thumbs up here to this decision. YOU CAN'T JUST IGNORE CONTRACTS!!

Seriously, if you have a contract with an employee, and that contract includes a due process clause, and then you ignore it, you are responsible for the consequences. The amount to be repaid here is going to be gigantic. 331, 200, 000 at the minimum...